


A Thousand Ways to Die

by learningthetrees



Category: Slow West (2015)
Genre: Hurt, au-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-22 21:56:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6095263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/learningthetrees/pseuds/learningthetrees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jay had been so taken care of, he didn’t know how to take care of himself — or anyone else, for that matter. Maybe Silas was right: It <i>was</i> a miracle he’d made it this far.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Thousand Ways to Die

**Author's Note:**

> As requested by anon on Tumblr!

When he saw Silas waver in the saddle up ahead of him — that should have been his first clue.

They’d been riding for hours now in silence. Jay learned early on not to disrupt the quiet — and even when he did, Silas wouldn’t respond anyway. In many ways, traveling with Silas was not too different from traveling on his own, except that Jay couldn’t take his time as much as he would like. The wide vistas they passed through begged for his attention — they deserved to be taken in and admired, but Silas’s breakneck pace meant Jay often had to canter through the landscape without so much as a glance around him. More than once, Jay wondered why he’d agreed to this unlikely chaperone in the first place.

It had made sense at the time. Having just been accosted by strangers, Jay was in a vulnerable position. _Safer to travel with a killer_ , he’d said then, and if the journey was to be full of villains, ready to strike from the bushes at any moment, maybe the fifty dollars and sullen company would be worth it. But so far, aside from the couple of former officers, Jay and Silas had not crossed paths with anyone, friend nor foe.

No, the only person Jay had seen in days was the silent brute riding ahead of him. And when he saw Silas lean in the saddle and then correct himself, Jay spurred his pony forward a little. “Silas?” he called, but there was no response. He didn’t expect one. But he also didn’t expect to watch Silas overcorrect, lean to the other side, and then topple from the saddle altogether.

“Silas!” Jay pulled his mount to a stop and leapt down, racing over to where Silas had collapsed in the dirt, limbs limp. He grasped Silas’s shoulder and rolled him over, the man complicit. His face was pale and clammy, his eyes dancing beneath closed lids, his body heavy. “Silas?” Jay shook him, but his head only lolled against his shoulder. “Come on! Wake up!” Jay’s voice echoed through the valley, but Silas didn’t wake.

“What do I do?” Jay said under his breath. “What do I do?”

Silas’s chest rose and fell, and Jay pressed his ear to the man’s heart. His heartbeat was fast and steady, and an abnormal heat radiated from his body. Jay reached out — he realized his hand was shaking — and touched it to Silas’s forehead. It was feverishly hot.

Jay sat back, watching Silas’s prone form, feeling a newfound anxiety take root in the pit of his stomach. He knew he should do something, but he couldn’t connect his mind to his body. He couldn’t think.

All he could do was revisit every memory of every time he had ever been sick or injured growing up. There was always someone around to care for him — when he was very young, a nurse who lived at the estate. As he got older, scrapes and fevers were tended to by the family’s doctor who would travel in whenever Jay had so much as a cough. There was always a remedy, always an answer, always someone to take care of him.

Jay had been so taken care of, he didn’t know how to take care of himself — or anyone else, for that matter. Maybe Silas was right: It _was_ a miracle he’d made it this far. And now Silas was lying on the ground in front of him and he might be dying and there might be nothing Jay could do about it and —

Jay gasped, trying to breathe through his fears. He kept thinking in circles — _what do I do what do I do what do I do_. He leaned his head back, squinting in the mid-afternoon brightness. The sun was at its apex in the sky, baking everything it touched. Jay took another few heaving breaths as he looked back at Silas, then up at the sun again. He would burn up if he lay here much longer.

Rising to his feet and squatting down, Jay gripped Silas under the armpits and took several shuffling steps backwards, dragging the man into the shade of a scrubby bush. With the scraggly branches shading Silas from the sun, Jay stood back, forcing himself to think.

What could have caused this? They’d started out the day as usual: tea and some biscuits by a low campfire before saddling up and starting out as the sun rose. Silas had been quiet, but he always was. Jay had no way of knowing if he’d been feeling ill then.

He glanced back at Silas — still unconscious — before going over to the horses. Jay pawed through his saddlebag until he found what he was searching for. _Ho! for the West!!_ He flipped through the crinkled pages, but Edward Hepple Hall had no advice for a situation such as this. Jay turned to Silas’s bags, looking through his items in search of anything that might be of use. Silas’s stock was utilitarian: a knife, a couple of bandanas, ammunition, a few bites of extra food. The bottom of the bag was littered with green grasses and leaves — herbs and plants he must have harvested along the way.

From behind him came the sound of a low groan, and Jay spun on his heel. Silas rolled his head from one shoulder to the other, a long, pained moan issuing from his lips. “Silas?” Jay dashed over, dropping to his knees at the man’s side, but Silas’s eyes only fluttered open for a brief moment. Jay tried to rouse him; he grasped his shirt, shook him, even patted his face, but whatever level of consciousness Silas had reached had slipped away again.

Jay slumped over, shaking his head. He was hopelessly out of options. He had little idea where they were, and even less idea where he could seek out help. He’d been relying on Silas’s guidance, and now, he was without it. Jay looked up at the horizon, outlined with gold.

 _Rose_ , he reminded himself. He _had_ to get to Rose. He’d come this far, and nothing short of death would stop him.

He returned to the horses and dumped the saddlebags, more out of desperation than any particular strategy. As Jay shook out the bag, Silas’s canteen thumped to the ground at his feet. Jay knelt to pick it up, and he didn’t even have to uncork it to know it was empty.

 _Of course_.

They’d been following the river for as long as they could, but when it wound away toward the mountains, Silas had insisted they keep to the lowlands, so they parted ways from the water. It had been about a day and half that they’d been away from the creek, yet Jay hadn’t found himself wanting for water. Somehow, his canteen had always remained full. And now that he considered it, he couldn’t remember seeing Silas take a drink.

Jay strode to his pony and retrieved his canteen. It was half full, and the water was lukewarm from sitting in the sun, but he brought it back with him and pressed it to Silas’s lips anyway. At first, it dribbled out of the corner of his mouth, but then Silas’s lips parted a little and he gulped. Jay tipped the canteen until Silas had drunk all of it.

Without opening his eyes, Silas murmured something. Jay leaned his head closer. “What?” he said.

“Keep…going…downhill,” Silas said, his voice weak and dry.

Jay leapt to his feet, clutching the empty canteen and glancing around. They might have lost the creek, but there had to be water somewhere nearby. As he surveyed the landscape, Jay realized they’d been descending a gradual hill.

“I’ll be back,” Jay called, and he took off down the hill. With every yard he ran, all he could hope was that Silas could still recoup. _It’s not too late_ , he kept telling himself, repeating the mantra in time with his footfalls. _It’s not too late_.

And then he spotted it: a deep ravine that might at one point have been a river bed. Now, it was nearly dry but for a small trickle down the middle of it. Jay jumped down into the dry bed, skidding on some pebbles and almost losing his footing. He knelt and scooped up the water into the canteen, corking it up again before he pulled himself out of the ravine.

By the time he’d run back to where Silas and the horses were waiting, Jay was out of breath, so he couldn’t even speak as he brought the canteen back to Silas’s lips. But the man turned his head away, clamping his mouth shut. “Silas, you have to drink it,” Jay said.

“Boil it,” Silas managed to say.

Jay could have kicked himself. The water had to be made clean. He was so rattled, so consumed only with the concerns of the moment, he’d forgotten. He gathered up a pile of kindling, dead twigs and leaves that were littering the ground, and then he retrieved the flint and steel from his pack. But as he knelt to set the kindling ablaze, his hands were shaking so much, he couldn’t strike them together properly. They clattered to the ground.

“Relax.” Silas’s voice was barely more than a grunt, but Jay heard it. He closed his eyes, took a breath, and then picked up the flint and steel and struck them together. An orange spark jumped into the pile of twigs, and after a moment, a tendril of smoke crept up, followed by a flame. Jay set the canteen by the fire. The trembling in his hands had abated, but not entirely.

By the time the water had reached a boil, Silas’s eyes had drifted shut again. Jay roused him, holding the canteen up for him, but the man reached up and pulled the canteen — with more force than Jay expected — from Jay’s grasp. He glared as he took a sip, and Jay could tell he was already feeling like himself again.

Jay remained silent. If it weren’t for Silas, he’d have run out of water, and odds are he would have poisoned himself with foul water anyway. They might not have come across any enemies yet, but if Jay wasn’t careful, he’d end up causing his own demise.

It _was_ a wonder he’d made it this far. Maybe he did need his chaperone — more than he knew.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me at [ask-learningthetrees.tumblr.com](http://www.ask-learningthetrees.tumblr.com)!


End file.
